ABSTRACT
Statute has imposed specific repairing or fitness obligations across a wider field than that of short leases, and these duties, governing such diverse fields as long lessees of flats, owners of unfit housing or of property which constitutes a statutory nuisance. Even in the business tenancy renewal sector, statute provides a rent-fixing formula which may allow the courts to discount the full market rent if the premises are dilapidated. The statutory covenant respecting the "structure and exterior" was found to be insufficiently wide in the case of short leases of flats as opposed to individual houses because it had been held that the landlord's obligations extended only to the "structure and exterior" of any individual flat. The rules concerning control of statutory nuisances are in the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The procedure for combatting serious property disrepair is useful as imposing a criminal penalty on the person responsible for continuing the statutory nuisance.
